An insider's view of the Connecticut dining scene

Aug 13, 2013

09:35 AM

Giving some measure of how impressive it was for Arethusa, a relative new kid on the cheese making block, to bring home two awards is the fact that 257 companies submitted 1,794 different products to the competition.

And as much as this all might seem like information for cheese geeks to chew on, the American Cheese Society is more Manolo than mathematical. “Unlike other cheese competitions, where cheeses are only graded down for technical defects, ACS’s goal is to give positive recognition to those cheeses that are of the highest quality in their aesthetic and technical evaluation,” its website says.

The word aesthetic is apt, and important. While it’s a given that everything Arethusa does is technically perfect, the aesthetics—with regard to the ice cream, the wine bar and all of the products' deep, rich flavors—are what put the experience over the top.

Or, especially with autumn closing in and dark evenings by the fire to follow that, you can do what I personally did with absolute contentment on a number of weekends last winter—which was to buy wedges of Arethusa cheeses in the creamery and pair them in the comfort of home with very nice Italian red wines. The creamery and retail store is located at 822 Bantam Road (Route 202) in the Bantam section of Litchfield. The phone number is 860-361-6600 and the email is shop@arethusafarm.com.